AOSPA has just released a new update to its long-loved Paranoid Android ROM, and it's bringing back a bit of the old with the new. The recent build is based on Android 7.1.2 Nougat, so it's the latest you can get. Along with Nougat, a few old features are making a new appearance. Most notable is the return of the pie mode alternate navigation bar — which some people (me) prefer even over real pie. To be brief, the ROM is absolutely fantastic and may become my daily driver going forward. If you'd like to know why, though, you'll have to read on.

Since our last LineageOS post, the project has continued to add new features and support new devices. In addition to new Quick Settings tiles and changes to included apps, the ROM now supports 16 additional devices.

As of April 3rd, 2017 the Nexus 6/Shamu has truly reached end of life status. Although we knew it was coming, it seems it was easier to keep the buildbots running until more major changes were made. We’d like to take this time to sit back and reminisce on our fond, and large, memories of the device. Death, however, is not the end, but a new beginning. Or, at least, an excuse for those of us without upgrade fever to move ourselves over to a nice and shiny new ROM. While Google may have given up on Shamu, some devices just can’t stay down.

Google Assistant was introduced at Google I/O last year, as a more personal voice assistant than Google Now. Since then, it has been made available on several platforms - Pixel phones, the Google Home, Android TV, and Allo. But Assistant is still unavailable on non-Pixel phones without a special build.prop tweak. Now the Open GApps team has made enabling Assistant a little easier.

It's no secret why CyanogenMod is the most popular custom ROM out there; not only does it support a metric crapload of Android devices, but it also keeps them going far past their primes. The latest devices to get support for CM14.1 (Android 7.1 Nougat) nightlies include two variants of the Galaxy S III, the second-generation Moto X, a few Oppo devices, two versions of the HTC One Max, two Xiaomi phones, and more.

Earlier today, some disappointing news came from Steve Kondik, CyanogenMod's founder and Cyanogen Inc.'s cofounder; because of Cyanogen Inc.'s failure, "(CyanogenMod) is very much affected." For the time being, though, CyanogenMod maintainers are still churning out new builds of CM14.1 (Android 7.1 Nougat) for many devices. We've got seven new devices with CyanogenMod 14.1 nightlies this time around (well, more like five, since two pairs of the devices are almost exactly the same).

Cyanogen Inc. may be dying as a company, but the voluntarily-maintained CyanogenMod ROMs are still alive and kicking. Case in point: seven more devices are joining CyanogenMod 14.1, which is based on Android 7.1 Nougat. Six of these Android-powered machines have builds already up, but one doesn't yet.

OnePlus phone owners can probably agree that the company needs to work on faster OS updates. (It's a safe bet: pretty much everyone can agree on that, including Nexus owners.) OnePlus is trying. To that end, the company has announced that its two disparate Android software builds will be merged into one: Oxygen OS and Hydrogen OS. I'll pause for a moment to allow the chemistry nerds to make an H2O joke before we continue.

After releasing an OxygenOS 3.5 Community Build for the OnePlus 3 a little over a week ago, OnePlus has already issued an update that fixes a few complaints. For such a small version bump (3.5.0 to 3.5.1), this update actually packs quite a few improvements.

Microsoft's home-built (or home-bought) smartphone lineup may not be long for this world, but it looks like the development community isn't giving up on it. The Nokia Lumia 520 is an entry-level Windows Phone 8 device, announced back in 2013, and later succeeded by the Lumia 525 and 530.

A few days ago, XDA developer banmeifyouwant posted a video of his in-progress CyanogenMod 13 port to the Lumia 525. The video shows CM13, based on Android 6.0, booting on the device as well as opening and closing apps.

The developer only demonstrated the 525 booting, but he is currently working on kernel tweaks to allow the 520 to boot as well.